The Dead (43 page)

One group, though, three boys and a girl, stopped and asked for water. Ed gave them a bottle and asked them for details about the fire.

‘We was hiding out in a tower block down Brixton,’ said one of the boys. ‘There was loads of us there. Last night the fire lit up the whole sky. This morning you could see it. We was up high and you could watch it jumping from building to building. There ain’t nothing gonna stop it. You getting out?’

‘Probably,’ said Ed.

‘Don’t wait too long, man. It moves fast. It’s a firestorm. If it gets close, you can’t outrun it. We’re getting over the river, take our chances on the north side, though I’ve always hated north London. It’s just that
now
, well there ain’t hardly no south London left.’

‘Honestly,’ said the girl. ‘Don’t leave it too late. There’s crazies back there. Thousands of them, being driven up this way by the fire. Every last one in south London most likely.’

Wiki and Jibber-jabber were arranging the food in the back of the lorry with Zohra and Froggie.

‘Could we be burned?’ said Froggie, his big bulging eyes wider than ever.

‘Yes,’ said Wiki.

‘Will the whole of London be burned?’

‘Probably not. The wind will drop, or it might rain, then there’s the river that acts as a natural firebreak. But in the Great Fire of London in 1666 thirteen thousand houses went up in smoke. There were eighty thousand people living here then. About seventy thousand of them lost their homes. In 1906 in San Francisco twenty-five thousand buildings were destroyed by fire – admittedly there had been an earthquake as well, but even so.’

Ed came round to see how they were getting on. He had the rest of the coach party with him. There was Kwanele, wheeling his suitcase, immaculate in an admiral’s uniform he’d found. Chris Marker followed, for once not reading a book. Justin the nerd was carrying a Sten gun for protection. It had no bullets in it but looked menacing enough and gave him a feeling of security. Then came Mad Matt and Archie and the acolytes, carrying their ridiculous banner. The scab on Matt’s forehead was really gungy now but he displayed it proudly as a badge of honour. Bringing up the rear were Brooke, Courtney and Aleisha, quieter than normal, subdued and fearful.

Brooke nodded towards the kids that were streaming along the roads.

‘See, Aleisha,’ she said. ‘We ain’t alone. I told you.’

They all crowded nervously round, watching the skies. Ed shouted to get their attention.

‘There’s only twenty-three of us left.’ Word had got round about Jack and Bam although it was clear Ed didn’t want to talk about it. ‘And we’re not going to lose any more. OK? So this is how it is. The fire’s spreading this way and spreading fast.’

‘We’re moving north,’ said Matt, sounding very sure of himself. ‘We were never meant to stay here. The Lamb has sent the fire.’

‘Please, Matt …’

‘We have to cross the river and go to the temple in the city, to St Paul’s. Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No, it’s not bloody obvious.’ Ed was trying not to lose his temper. ‘Why would we want to go to St Paul’s? We’ll decide where we’re going when we get across the river.’

‘We should hurry,’ said Froggie. ‘I don’t want to get burned up.’

‘There’s a few things I need to do before we leave,’ said Ed.

‘We’re going to St Paul’s,’ Matt insisted.

‘Shut up. Let me finish!’ Ed glared at Matt until he was sure he wouldn’t interrupt again, then went on. ‘Kwanele, I want you to go and find Jordan, tell him if he wants to load anything on to here he’d better hurry, OK? Justin, I need to talk to you and Wiki about something inside. The rest of you stay with the lorry.’

‘We need to rescue the books,’ said Chris.

‘What books?’

‘There’s a whole library of books up there. I’ll need everyone to help me save the most useful.’

‘We don’t need books now, Chris.’

‘Yes we do,’ said Chris bluntly. ‘If we want to survive we need knowledge. And books contain knowledge. Trust me. Books will save our lives just as much as weapons.’

‘All right, all right. Brooke, you’re in charge of helping Chris. The three of you, go with him, bring down what he wants and load them on to one of these empty cages. Just one, OK? Then get it on to the lorry. Don’t argue with him. Don’t take the piss. Just do it.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

‘And be quick, it’s getting late.’

‘Right.’

‘Who does that leave to guard the lorry?’

‘We’ll do it,’ said Matt.

‘You?’

‘We’re well armed.’

Indeed, Ed saw that Matt and his followers had got themselves some guns and were loaded down with knives and swords.

‘All right,’ said Ed, ‘but don’t get any stupid ideas about leaving without me.’ He turned to Justin. ‘Come with me. We need to talk.’

‘Frédérique’s gone. I guess you all know what happened to her?’

‘Yes,’ said Jibber-jabber.

Ed was in the museum shop with Justin and Wiki. Jibber-jabber had insisted on coming along as well. He and Wiki couldn’t be separated, and now he was off on one of his breathless monologues.

‘She got the sickness, she went nuts and tried to eat Froggie. You see, like, a wild cat? That’s what she looked like, it was really scary, not as scary as when Greg went psycho on the bus, but it wasn’t nice at all, she must have lied to us about her age.’

‘We never asked her,’ said Ed. ‘We just assumed.’

‘It explains a lot,’ said Justin.

‘Exactly. She’s nearly sixteen.’

‘What’s going to happen to her?’ asked Wiki.

‘God knows,’ said Ed. ‘She’s on her own now. She went for me while I was trying to talk to her. She seemed almost sort of normal at first. Why is it that when they get sick all they want to do is attack us?’

‘Is that what you wanted to talk to us about?’ said Justin.

‘Well, the main thing is …’ Ed paused, not sure if he should carry on.

‘What?’

‘OK. But you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone else.’

‘Fine.’

‘Next week’s my birthday,’ said Ed. ‘I’m going to be fifteen. What I’m asking is – am I going to get sick like Frédérique?’

The other three just sat there staring at him. Ed pressed on.

‘I mean – what happens to us as we get older? Are we all going to become sickos?’

Still the others just sat there in silence.

‘Come on,’ said Ed. ‘Say something.’

‘We don’t know, Ed,’ said Justin. ‘How can we know?’

‘You must have some ideas.’

‘Well …’ Justin bit his lip. ‘OK. If I had to say either way, I’d say it doesn’t look too bad for you.’

‘Why?’

‘You have to look at the evidence,’ said Wiki.

‘Yeah, yeah, what evidence?’

‘We’ve been talking about this in the Brains Trust,’ said Justin. ‘Sometimes when you talk about something it makes it less frightening. So we’ve been talking about why the sickos want to eat children.’

‘Yeah, I can see how that might make Froggie a little less frightened,’ said Ed sarcastically.

‘It does, actually,’ said Justin. ‘If you can understand something, you can control it. Now, there’s obviously something different between us and the sickos.’

‘Yeah, just a bit,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘They’re nuts!’

‘And we’ve thought about it in a Darwinian way,’ Justin went on, ignoring Jibber-jabber.

‘Get to the point,’ said Ed. ‘We haven’t got long. What’s a Darwinian way?’

‘Survival of the fittest. Genetics, mating rituals, alpha males, queen bees, ant colonies, all the sort of stuff you get in a David Attenborough series.’

‘What’s that got to do with me being fifteen?’

‘We’re animals just the same as any other,’ said Justin. ‘And everything we do is to survive. Sickos as well.’

‘Put it like this,’ said Wiki. ‘Whatever the sickos do – it’s not random. So we have to assume that the sickos eat us in order to survive.’

‘Oh, bloody hell, we know that!’ Ed tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation. Wiki and Justin being so serious and wannabe scientific. ‘They need to eat something, so they try to eat us.’

‘But why us?’ said Justin. ‘Why, out of all the available food sources, do the sickos choose us first? I mean, from what we can gather, if there’s no children around they’ll eat other things to survive – rats and cats and dead pigeons – any food they can find. Crisps even, I suppose, if they could get the packs open. But given the choice they’d
rather
eat children. Even though we fight back. Even though we kill them. Offer them a nice steak and chips and they’re not interested, they’ll try to bite your hand off and eat that instead.’

‘Yeah, OK. I get that.’

‘Well,’ said Justin, twining his fingers together like some crusty old school teacher. He was really enjoying this. ‘In the wild, animals know what to eat and what not to eat. There’s no food labelling, no sell-by dates, no nutritional advice or cookery programmes for them. They even eat some things as a sort of medicine.’

‘You see my dog?’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘He used to eat grass to make himself sick, he’d chew away at it then cough it up, he used to look quite funny, but it was still disgusting.’

‘Exactly,’ said Justin. ‘A lot of animals do things like that. They don’t know why they do it, but they do. They have an impulse. Their bodies seem to know what they need even if their brains don’t.’

‘Are you saying that the sickos
need
to eat us, somehow?’ Ed asked, getting interested now. ‘To survive?’

‘That would seem to be the most obvious answer,’ said Justin. ‘Let’s look at the facts.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘One – as soon as anyone gets the disease, what’s the first thing they do?’

‘They attack.’

‘Right. Two – why didn’t Greg get ill as quickly as most other adults?’

‘I don’t know. Why? I’ve no idea.’

‘Come on – what was he eating? That smoked meat.’

‘Oh, yeah. And you reckon that was human meat?’

‘Not just any human meat. Child meat.’

‘OK. I get you, I think.’ Ed smiled. ‘Yeah. You’re saying that if they eat us it helps to keep the sickness away? Is that it?’

‘Maybe.’ Justin stood up and started to walk up and down. ‘Look at the most successful sickos. They’re not so diseased, are they? So they can catch us kids easier. But maybe it’s a chicken and egg thing? Maybe the two things are connected? The more kids they eat, the less sick they get, and the less sick they get the more kids they eat.’

‘You’re saying we’re like a sort of medicine for them?’

‘In a way, yes.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Ed rubbed his temples and slowly shook his head, trying to take this in.

‘We think there’s something in us that adults need to eat in order to stay alive,’ said Wiki. ‘That means that the reason we didn’t get the sickness is that we’re different to them. Biologically different somehow. Everybody born less than fifteen years ago has something inside them that prevents them from getting the disease.’

‘What is it?’

‘We’ve got no idea,’ said Justin. ‘But the sickos can sense it. Not consciously. I don’t know, they can smell it, maybe. Remember what happened to Frédérique when she was attacked at the lorry? The sickos weren’t interested in her. They left her alone and went after the other kids. And that explains why they don’t eat each other, well, not unless they’re absolutely desperate. Their primary impulse is to attack and kill and eat children, because we are the
only
thing keeping them alive. Why do some die of the disease and some live? They live because they eat children. And the more they eat the longer they live.’

‘That’s not a very nice thought.’

‘Yes, but like I said, all knowledge is power,’ said Justin. ‘The more we can understand them the more we can defend against them.’

‘And what about sunlight, then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why does sunlight make them worse?’

‘Does it?’ Justin was frowning. This was new information for him.

‘Oh, come on, Justin,’ said Ed, pathetically pleased that he knew something that Justin didn’t. ‘You must have seen it. When you put a dead sicko into the sun –’

‘They turn into popcorn,’ Jibber-jabber interrupted. ‘Like exploding caterpillars.’

‘Yes,’ said Justin. ‘Go on.’

‘They prefer to stay in the dark,’ said Ed. ‘Not come out in the daylight. And Frédérique, she was all right in the dark, but went berserk in the daylight. When I spoke to her, she kept saying the sunlight hurt her.’

‘Maybe there’s something in the electromagnetic radiation from the sun,’ said Wiki. ‘Maybe the ultraviolet, or something. The sun’s rays could accelerate the disease. There are people who are allergic to sunlight. They have to stay in the dark or their skin blisters. It’s called polymorphous light eruption.’

‘There’s obviously a lot we still have to learn about the disease,’ said Justin, sitting back down.

‘Maybe you should catch some sickos and do experiments on them,’ said Ed.

‘Yes,’ said Justin. ‘It’d be dangerous, but if we really want to understand what’s going on then we should.’

‘Justin, I was joking!’ said Ed. ‘You can’t start doing human experiments.’